


a pebble in the water

by shineyma



Series: this world's gonna end [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 10:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10740039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: They shouldn't be doing this--and if they're going to anyway, theydefinitelyshouldn't get caught.





	a pebble in the water

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a prompt from darkangelcryo, but as sharing the prompt would spoil it, I've stuck it in the end notes.
> 
> Also, **warning** for discussion of off-screen abuse.
> 
> Also also, I have more than 100 comments waiting for replies. I'm sorry, I'm terrible. Maybe after finals are over?
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Jemma can’t catch her breath.

Grant is making his way down her neck—biting at hickies already present and kissing the spaces in between, claiming every inch of her skin—and his hand is inside her shirt, and he’s pressing her ever harder into the wall, grinding his hips against hers in the promise of more to come, and he’s surrounding her, supporting her, his every touch setting her aflame, and—

“What the _hell_!”

Oh. Oh, no.

It’s amazing how quickly the fire in her veins turns to ice. A cold wave washes over her, clearing desire away and leaving behind nothing but pure terror.

Grant is similarly frozen.

“Skye,” Jemma manages. She can barely hear her own voice over the thundering of her heart. “This isn’t…”

Isn’t what? Isn’t what it looks like? A _child_ wouldn’t be fooled by such absurdity; Skye, mouth still open in shock, gives her a judgmental stare.

“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Grant admits, finally recovering. He steps back, shifting his grip on Jemma that she might unwind her legs from his waist and be let down. Only once he’s sure she’s steady on her feet does he turn to Skye. “Which is why you can’t say anything.”

“Can’t—” Skye scoffs, though it’s a bit too high-pitched to sound disdainful. She’s still stunned by what she’s walked in on, clearly; the arm she flings towards Jemma nearly takes out the vase on the entrance table. “You’re _married_!”

“Not by choice!” Jemma defends, knee-jerk—and then nearly bites her tongue. Her time with Grant always makes her forget herself; it’s dangerous. “Please forget I said that.”

Skye’s back to gaping. “You and—You're—”

“Arranged, yes, but _please_ don’t let on that you know. He hates being reminded and he’ll know I told you—”

“More than he’ll hate the fact that you’re cheating on him with _Ward_?” Skye asks.

“He’ll kill him!” Jemma says, seizing on that. Skye and Grant are partners; if only Jemma can get her to see keeping their secret as having his back, the way she does in the field…

“ _I_ should kill him!” Skye snaps. She’s still so much in shock that she almost sounds serious. “What the hell are you even thinking? Are you thinking at all?”

“He’ll hurt her,” Grant says, very quietly, before Jemma can answer.

Skye stares.

“If you won’t keep your mouth shut for me,” he continues, swallowing audibly (because he’s worried? Or because the thought of his own partner not caring to protect him in this way hurts?), “do it for Jemma.”

“Hurt…no,” Skye says, but it’s weak. Her eyes bounce between them, strangely pleading. “He wouldn’t, would he?”

Jemma looks away. Exhaustion tries to creep in along the edges of her paralyzing fear; that question is bound to set Grant off.

Sure enough…

“He’s an abusive son of a bitch,” he all but growls. “If you had any idea even _half_ the things he’s—”

“Grant,” Jemma says, cutting cleanly through the rant she knows is building. “Please.”

His eyes meet hers, and her heart constricts at the helpless fury in them. Her situation hurts him, she knows—just as _he_ knows there’s nothing to be done for it, and that she hates it when he snaps. His fingers brush hers in silent apology.

Skye is watching them, face unreadable. “I saw him in the hall this morning. He was…” She stops, shaking her head. “He’d really hurt you?”

The urge to defend him rises up. It always does. There’s a whole history hiding in her throat, just waiting to be shared—the fact that he wasn’t too bad, really, when they first married. Of course, it was his doing that they were married at all (he who turned to his father to arrange a match when she rejected him during their days at the Academy, determined even then to have her whether she liked it or not), but he was kind to her. Romantic, even.

Then came HYDRA—or, to be more precise, her pronouncement that she’d rather die than work for it. After that, everything changed.

The words are there, as always. And as always, she swallows them down. Leopold doesn’t need defending. He doesn’t _deserve_ defending.

“Yes,” she admits, rather hoarsely. Tears sting at her eyes. This isn’t an easy thing to say. “He would. Awfully.”

Seeming oddly wounded by the confirmation, Skye turns away, running a hand through her hair.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. Fuck.” She crosses the room to collapse on the couch, burying her face in one hand. “This is so fucked up.”

Jemma’s legs are like jelly beneath her, but somehow she finds the strength to follow Skye, to sit beside her and take her hand.

“Skye,” she says, “please. I’m begging you: don’t tell Leopold.”

Skye gives her a sideways look that draws out for a long moment…and then, surprisingly, her eyes drop to Jemma’s chest.

“Your shirt’s unbuttoned,” she says wryly.

“Oh!” Jemma had nearly forgotten the incident that started this all, she and Grant being interrupted mid-snog. “Sorry.”

As she struggles to do up her buttons with trembling fingers, Grant joins them, dropping into the armchair across the coffee table. Jemma aches to be nearer—they get so little time together as it is—but doesn’t dare move, for fear of pushing Skye the wrong way.

“So?” he asks.

“I won’t tell,” Skye says—to Jemma, not Grant. “Your secret’s safe with me. I promise.”

Relief steals the strength from her spine, and Jemma slumps back against the couch.

“Thank you,” she says, taking Skye’s hand again to squeeze it in gratitude. “Truly.”

She’d never say so—not when Grant seems always to be just one bruise away from snapping and killing him—but Leopold terrifies her. The cool, calm disappointment with which he inflicts any harm…it’s worse than the unpredictable rage he occasionally flies into.

Rage she sometimes gets the feeling that Ophelia eggs on. His father does, certainly—she’s heard him speak of the need for a firm hand, has more than once been disparaged right to her face for being too “soft” for Leopold.

And there was once…

No. No, there’s no need to dredge up old hurts, even in her own mind. Skye has agreed to keep what she saw to herself, and so their secret will remain just that, at least for now. There’s no cause to dwell on what _won’t_ be waiting for her when she goes home tonight.

Or at least, won’t be waiting because of her infidelity. It’s been hours since she left the Triskelion, and she has no way of knowing what events have unfolded in her absence or what sort of mood Leopold might be in when she returns.

Grant is watching her, jaw tight; she wonders if she’s given away the path of her thoughts.

Best to change the subject.

“So,” she says, as brightly as she’s able, “what brought you here, Skye?”

Skye—clearly lost in her own thoughts—starts. “What?”

“You broke into my apartment,” Grant reminds her. The touch of playful annoyance in his tone rings false, but at least he’s _trying_. “Why?”

“Because…nobody answered when I knocked?”

A genuine laugh bubbles up in Jemma’s throat, taking her—and Grant and Skye, if their reactions are any indication—by surprise. She can’t help it, though; Grant’s flatly exasperated face is just too much for her.

He’s smiling a little now, though. That’s nice.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he says to Skye. “What did you want? Why were you looking for me?”

“Oh, right,” Skye says. “Actually, I was looking for Jemma.”

Jemma blinks. “Really? Whatever for?”

She likes Skye well enough—certainly more than just the baseline appreciation she’d have for _anyone_ who helps keep Grant safe in the field—but they’re more friendly than actually friends. She can’t imagine what would have her looking for her at all, let alone—

Wait.

The thought strikes Grant at the same moment; she sees it happen, the way he goes from relaxed to on guard, the shift in his posture as he prepares to act.

“How’d you know she was here?” he asks.

“I tracked her,” Skye says, and Jemma’s hand goes automatically to her upper arm, to the tracker embedded beneath her skin.

“Tracked me how?” she asks, breathless.

“Not by the personal tracker listed in your file, if that’s what you’re wondering—and, wow, that makes a new and horrible kind of sense.” Skye appears to get momentarily distracted by that, then shakes herself. “Sorry. No, I just traced your phone. It’s HYDRA-issued, and they have GPS tracking. You know that, right?”

It strikes Jemma as an odd question—why _wouldn’t_ she know?—but there’s no time to care about it.

“And did you...use a HYDRA computer to trace it?” she prods.

“No, it was my laptop. Why?”

Jemma’s breath shudders out of her. Her heart is pounding, kicked back into high gear by the near miss, and she rubs at the ache it causes in her chest. She’s had too many shocks today; it’s really not good for her.

“Using a networked computer would’ve led HYDRA straight to us,” Grant answers for her. “Even using your own—it was a hell of a risk, Skye.”

“Well, it’s not like I _knew_ you were screwing around behind Fitz’s back,” Skye snaps. Her anger fades as quickly as it appears, though, and it’s with an earnest gaze she turns to Jemma. “I was careful, okay? I covered all my tracks. Promise.”

“Thank you,” Jemma says, mustering up a smile. “Again.”

Skye’s answering smile is weak, not that Jemma can blame her. They’ve dropped quite a lot on her—and they’re asking even more. If Jemma’s infidelity is ever revealed…if their affair is ever discovered…as Grant’s partner, Skye will be the first person Leopold investigates. Should it come out (and it will) that she knew and said nothing…

She’ll be condemned just as surely as Grant will.

That in mind, Jemma really should apologize.

Before she can, however, Grant speaks.

“What’d you need with Jemma?”

“Oh.” Skye looks from Grant to Jemma and back again, then frowns at the coffee table. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” Jemma echoes.

Skye throws her hands up. “I kinda had a _shock_ here! I don’t know what I expected when I walked in, but it sure as hell wasn’t finding you locking lips with _Ward_ , of all people.”

Something in that phrasing niggles at Jemma’s mind, but she brushes it aside.

“Perhaps next time you could try calling?” she suggests. “That could have spared us all a bit of stress.”

“Yeah,” Skye says on a somewhat hysterical laugh. “Yeah, no kidding. This is—this is a lot.”

Without warning, she shoots to her feet—so suddenly Jemma can’t help but flinch.

“Sorry,” Skye says. “I just—I should go. I’ll give you a call later, okay? When I remember why I was looking for you.”

She’s speaking quickly, appearing flustered, and it makes Jemma wonder if perhaps the immensity of what she’s agreed to keep quiet is sinking in. Maybe she’s having second thoughts.

The same worry must have occurred to Grant; he’s standing slowly.

“Skye…”

“Don’t,” she interrupts, holding up a hand. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I just—Mack’s waiting for me downstairs. He’s probably getting antsy.”

“Mack?” Jemma asks.

Grant rolls his eyes fondly. “New boyfriend?”

“Yep.” Skye nods. “Brand new. And I don’t want him getting away, so…bye.”

Jemma hates to phrase it in such a manner, but there’s really no other way to say it: having so spoken, Skye flees.

“Well,” she says, rather at a loss for words. What tension Skye’s promise eased within her has come rushing back, scared into existence by Skye’s hasty exit.

She’s having a bit of trouble finding enough oxygen to fill her lungs.

“Yeah.” Grant rounds the coffee table to take Skye’s abandoned place, and Jemma curls into him at once. “You okay, baby?”

“Will she keep her word?”

“Absolutely,” he says, as confident as she’s ever heard him. “Skye won’t betray me.”

“Then yes,” she says, cuddling nearer, “I’m fine.”

Grant kisses her hair and holds her close—firm enough to reassure, gentle enough she could break away if so she wished. His heart is steady beneath her ear, the circles he traces along her skin soothing.

He says nothing about the way she’s trembling.

**Author's Note:**

> darkangelcryo said: Biospecialist au, in a world where arranged marriages are the norm, where Jemma is married to Fitz.
> 
> (Obviously I cheated a little by throwing the framework into things, but....whatever.)


End file.
